: Screenwriting

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Are you wrestling with a movie idea that hasn't quite taken shape? Or do you have an existing draft of a screenplay that desperately needs a rewrite? This week will help you to gain an understanding of the craft of screenwriting and develop the tools you need to take your project to the next level.

We begin at the beginning with who and what the story is about and move on from there with the instructor serving as senior story editor. With input from their peers and the instructor, the writer will objectively reappraise all aspects of their own work and come up with a rewrite strategy designed to advance and improve all aspects of characterization and story structure. We will then continue with the writers implementing their rewrite strategies and bringing fresh pages into a group workshop environment to receive feedback from fellow students and the instructor. On-going discussions and lectures will introduce topics such as the vocabulary of the cinema, dramatic structure, character development, dialogue and subtext; a running Q&A will also help writers with issues specific to what they are encountering as they move along with their rewrite.

Ultimately, the focus will be on developing the stories, discovering new dimensions in them, and getting to know what is possible and dramatically viable. At the end of the course, the writer should be finished, or be well on his or her way to completing, a second draft screenplay.

Aimed at beginning to intermediate screenwriters, writers in other media and workers in the film industry, this course also addresses the role of the writer in the film industry, the market for Canadian screenwriters and ways to "break in" as a serious screenwriter.